


How Alfie meet Cyril

by kenniagoldberg



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Abandonment, Child Neglect, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, F/M, Falling In Love, Past Abortion, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:40:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23593981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenniagoldberg/pseuds/kenniagoldberg
Summary: A shoot about how our two favourite hairy characters met, and a journey through the memories of a young, lovesick Alfie Solomons whose past changed him into what he is.
Relationships: Alfie Solomons/Original Character(s), Alfie Solomons/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 7





	How Alfie meet Cyril

On that stormy night, as rainwater flooded the streets without remedy, Alfie Solomons walked home in an equally dark halo. It wasn't that the mood was alien to him, no, it was practically his shadow. It followed him everywhere, a bitter blackness with a strangely sweet taste in his mouth. He remembers with something like affection those days of his most tender childhood. His father was still a great stranger to him, and he was happy with his mother anyway. His _mat_ , a young and innocent washerwoman who slept with a street vendor, a sperm dispenser, creator of bastards. A barbarian for whom every empty womb was Rome.

Thus, he grew up slightly neglected with a mother who worked all day and an absent father, of whom he kept only a size eight and a half hat made in Luton, where hatters go crazy for inhaling toxic fumes. In any case, Alfie Solomons Junior was loved and protected by the Jewish community of Camden, one of the poorest neighbourhoods of London. He even formed a strong friendship with the rabbi of his synagogue, Mr Cohen. He used to say that he would be a rabbi one day. He smiles ironically at the memory that has just come into his head. At least, Mr. Cohen, who is now an octogenarian elder, never stopped helping him redeem himself.

He heard a faint whimpering that pushed him out of his thoughts and made him stop. After convincing himself that he had been a figment of his imagination, he grumbled and went on his way. The moaning came louder now, and he turned with a scowl to the garbage can in the alley to his left. He stepped inside and lifted his cloak. Whatever it was, it gave off a terrible stench of rotten fish and wetness. Much to his regret, he removed his jacket and folded the sleeve of his shirt to reach into the trash. He ignored the disgusting biscuit feeling in his hand and rummaged around until he found it. He carefully turned the bucket over, putting the food aside and waiting until a small head popped out. The cub looked at him in terror, shaking hopelessly and with its tongue hanging out of its mouth. He tried to grab it, but the little animal's attitude changed abruptly: he showed his teeth in what was intended to be a threatening position and grunted. Alfie did the same, impatient, before he spoke.

-If you don't let me touch you, I can't help you. And I want to get to my fucking house and sleep, right?

He calmed down quickly and looked at me scared again. I took him in my arms and I contemplated what I had hoped for before. He was very skinny, possibly the smallest of the litter, so the bastard owner left him in a garbage can to die.

He stuffed him into his black coat and walked home. If he remembered correctly, there was a pet shop around the corner where he could perhaps get some food for the tiny beast. He entered the store and a skeletonized woman with white hair and glasses on the end of her nose received him.

I saw a faint recognition in her sunken eyes, but she said nothing. I took the bag of puppy food and put it on the counter, looking for my wallet.

-Does he have a name?

A high-pitched, annoying voice made him look down. She had wild black hair, dark eyes, freckled skin and a height that could not exceed five bony palms.

-No.

Grandmother tried to scold her, but the little girl escaped her grip with surprising ease.

-Are you Mr Solomons? Sometimes the woman at the hairdresser's talks about you. And the postman. And the butcher...

I raised an eyebrow, shrinking to his height.

-And what do they say?-she looked me up and down, assessing me.

-They say you're bad.

-They're quite right-I paid and set out with both hands busy.

-Cyril?

I turned around with a scowl.

-Today is St Cyril's Day. You could call him Cyril-she said with a shrug.

I hummed, pressed my lips and nodded. I walked down the street to the red brick house, going in and locking the door as I passed. I led him straight to the bath. At first, he resisted fervently and tried to get out of the water. Then he even seemed to start enjoying the heat.

When the bad smell disappeared, I dried him with an old towel and left him on the floor. As I walked to the kitchen, the name came back to me. Cyril. The girl had reminded me in an impossible way of Martha May. Marthy, as we all knew her, was an equally thin, tanned, dark-haired, rowdy girl. She had huge eyes and a similar way of being. I had never seen her in a skirt or a dress, the jeans never left her. She swore and cursed like any other boy in the neighborhood, played at pirates wielding a stick like a sword, and never cried. She was definitely my first love.

After my mother found out that she was a _shiska_ , she took me away from her and told me I could never see her again.

That night, at the sweet age of eight, I began to see what the world was really like.

I took an empty plate and put in some food. Then I wondered if I could eat fodder when he was so small. I tried, and he looked at the food as if he did not understand what he had to do. After trying several times, he took a handful from my hand and chewed it, tasting it. Apparently he decided he liked it and began to eat so eagerly that it looked like he would choke. After giving him some water that he drank happily, he sat down and wagged his tail. It reminded me of my childhood version.

A fucking mutt reminded me of myself, helpless, hungry and with no one who cared too much. Eager for a little love. What had hardened Alfred Solomons Junior was exactly that. The beatings he had taken from older boys. Christian kids kicking a Jewish kid to the ground in a pool of blood. It was only a short phase of his complicated life, because he quickly became the child who beat. When someone kicked him, he kicked back.

It was no surprise to anyone that a young Alfie began to form friendships with dangerous people. People that nobody in their right mind would associate with. And he learned the hard way that if he wanted to be on top he would have to form a mountain under his feet. A mountain of betrayals, lies and dead friends. That is why, once his mother was buried and having lost all his friends in his race for power, he was left as alone as when he was a child.

He undressed carelessly, throwing his clothes down the aisle and getting into bed. The dog followed him and barked to Alfie for to bring him up. 

-No, mate. This bed is mine. Find another place.

He looked at me with his sad, tearful eyes, and I snorted before I picked him up. He curled up on my chest, digging into the blankets. I covered both of us and tried something I hadn't done since I was a teenager. I stroked another creature in an attempt to comfort him.

He had done the same thing before, with a woman. With his very young Martha. He was seventeen at the time. She was only fifteen. The young teenager already had a shadowy heart and bloodstained hands, perhaps less scarring and more hope. He had only slept with three or four prostitutes, motivated by the desire to avoid getting into something that involved feelings. He had never been good at expressing them. But she... Oh, she. She had disappeared in the direction of America and returned only when she found herself alone with her parents who had died behind her in an outbreak of TB. She survived.

She was now dressed in fancy clothes, wearing lipstick and her hands were clean and well cared for. She was a woman. He managed to get her to bed in a short time. It was not that she was an easy girl or that he was an experienced womanizer, the reason for their union was that they had a common past. She confessed to the future gangster that not only was she not a virgin, but she had lost a child, crying inconsolably, panting and trembling beneath Alfie's equally naked body.

He saw in what was once little Marthy a representation of her mother. Pregnant young and abandoned by her partner when things got bad.

He lay beside her all night, leaving aside the erotic part of the situation, and caressed her with inexperienced delicacy. Both fell asleep late and, upon waking with the first rays of the sun, discovered that he was alone in bed. For the second time, Alfred Solomons' heart was broken by the beautiful and charming Marthy May.

He sighed as he gazed at the polished white ceiling. The little dog snored over him, moving to settle in from time to time. After Martha May many others had come. Women who stayed one night and fleeting lovers a week long. Only one or two serious relationships, couples who left him when his cover was blown. He was thus condemned to wander through life alone.

He would take refuge in the bedrooms of high-ranking young women who sought to rebel against the control of their family. He would leave them hours later, drenched in sweat, and full of marks of passion. If he could not find such a comfortable place, he would settle for the rickety mattress of a whorehouse, with women who charged half before and half after. But Kean? With her, it was special from the first moment.

She always had him captivated with her few words and her honey-colored eyes. She gave him more affection than any other woman with just a few innocent touches. Kean Roberts, he sighs when the memories come to his mind. Although when he found Cyril, she was just an unknown child growing up somewhere in Ireland, but she would be special.

Kean Roberts was the love of his life.


End file.
